


Just to Keep It

by sophinisba



Category: The Hours - Cunningham
Genre: 100-1000 Words, Backstory, Gen, Queer Themes, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-07 21:13:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/pseuds/sophinisba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What Kitty thought of Laura's kiss</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just to Keep It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Paceus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paceus/gifts).



> Special thanks to my friend N., who participated in fandom for the first time by betaing this fic.

_"And she felt that she had been given a present, wrapped up, and told just to keep it, not to look at it...."_ \-- Virginia Woolf, _Mrs. Dalloway_

It had happened once before, during the war. But things were different then, women were having to fill in all kinds of places where they didn't really belong, just as the men were in places they didn't belong, like Europe and the South Pacific, and God only knew if Ray was still alive or dead. You were never quite sure where the limits were then, how much was too far.

The munitions plant where Kitty was working wasn't two miles from the high school where she and Ray had gone, and Laura and Dan before them, but half the girls there were from some other part of the country, moved out to Los Angeles because, they said, they couldn't breathe in the towns they'd come from. After work they'd go out to a bar where there were no soldiers to be seen, only other women, and they drank and sang and laughed into the early morning, and then they went home together.

Kitty wasn't one of those girls, but her friend Jeannie from the line was, and one Friday night she convinced her to come out to the bar with the gang and to drink a couple beers, and later that night as they stood outside Kitty's door, Jeannie held the small of her back with one hand and touched her jaw with the other as she kissed her on the lips. Kitty had a job to catch her breath after that, and she didn't manage to say anything back when Jeannie smiled and told her a quiet goodnight.

She'd wanted to keep it secret, as something that wasn't wrong in itself but would be better if it weren't touched, handled, discussed. And best if it never happened again. Jeannie seemed to understand. They never spoke of it, and Kitty never got the impression that the other girls knew. Jeannie invited her out again the next week, and Kitty politely declined. Jeannie smiled, and maybe she was laughing at her a little, but that was all right. She didn't ask again -- she had plenty of company and didn't need to bother with a reluctant case like Kitty.

When Jeannie and four of her friends stopped showing up at the factory, Kitty didn't ask the foreman for an explanation, didn't say anything at all. She went on with her work, and the world went on with its war. And after things calmed down and they sent _all_ the girls home she heard from Ray's family that he'd been found in a liberated POW camp, and he'd be home in another month, and then the two of them could get married and get on with their lives.

It's been years, and sometimes she still wonders when her real life is going to start. And sometimes -- when she thinks of the doctor's face and the things he won't tell her -- she's afraid she'll be gone before it ever does.

But she likes standing in this kitchen with Laura, her neighbor and her friend, even though they don't know what to say to each other and might not even wish each other well. Laura is taller than Kitty but fine-boned and hesitant -- she wouldn't have lasted two days at the munitions plant. Kitty smiles to herself and it feels like good old Jeannie's solid smugness come back, to keep her company, to hold her up. She feels strong and capable next to Laura, even if no one calls her to use those strong limbs these days, not to do her part for the boys, not to carry a child in her arms, not for anything more than to make a meal for two and carry it to the table.

The doctor is always telling her to lie still, not to tense up. Ray tells her not to worry. As if telling her those things could help.

She doesn't need Laura to comfort her. Laura Brown, with her cigarettes and her excuses, her child with his too-big eyes, Laura with her hand on her belly like a secret she can't decide if she wants to keep. Then Kitty's crying in her arms, but it doesn't mean she _needs_ her. Laura does, of course, needs someone else, something more. That much is clear, even when Kitty closes her eyes and shuts down her mind so she can feel and know nothing but Laura's lips on hers.

They pull apart and after a few moments of searching they speak of other things and Kitty goes back outside, but she's thinking it's too bad she can't tell Laura where to find what she's missing. It's too bad they shut down that bar at the end of the war. (It wasn't hurting anyone, after all.) It's too bad she never knew what happened to Jeannie.

Still, it's not her responsibility to make Laura happy. If tomorrow's procedure goes the way it's supposed to then they'll still see each other around the neighborhood, but if Laura invites her in for coffee she'll politely decline. And maybe one day she won't see Laura anymore at all, because Laura will be gone. If that happens she'll do her best to be kind to Dan and the boy, but she won't push beyond her place. She won't demand explanations, won't even want them. Let them both just hold on to that exquisite moment, not the dull, damaged hours that hang around it.

**Author's Note:**

> Read [Just to Keep It (The Hindsight Remix)](http://community.livejournal.com/remixthedrabble/136939.html), by theswearingkind, 100 words.


End file.
